Canberra pull a Magic Trick to spook Cronulla

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Canberra Raiders v Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks

A spectacular last minute try to Seb Kris was enough to secure victory for the Canberra Raiders, who overcame a Hudson Young sin-bin to down the Cronulla Sharks 24-20 at GIO Stadium.

Canberra opened the scoring inside the first five minutes when Kaeo Weekes took Nicholson underneath and he broke through some poor defence from Oregon Kaufusi and Blayke Brailey to get over the line. The theme early was capitalising on poor discipline and the Sharks were rewarded when Mawene Hiroti continued to tear apart Canberra's right edge as Matt Timoko was burnt for pace to allowed the Newtown centre to get a try on NRL return and it was 6-6 inside the first 10 minutes.

As both sides settled, eventually it would take a magical moment to get either side the the lead. Fortunately, a clever play from Raiders hooker Tom Starling saw the home side take the lead. After scheming out of dummy half, a clever kick saw a flying Hudson Young fly through and ground the ball to give the Canberrans a 12-6 lead. Cronulla answered swiftly following a cheap yardage error. A simple crash ball from Braydon Trindall to Briton Nikora sent the backrower through the left edge defenders to ground the ball into the in-goal to level us back up with just over ten to go.

Following a lethal Jamal Fogarty bomb that was spilled by Sam Stonestreet, the Raiders went on the attack. Despite a good read on Seb Kris by the Sharks edge defence, he was able to get a cracking offload away to Young who crosses for his second try. Just before the end of the half, Nikora got the ball in an impractical position on the last, a great grubber which went into the legs of Corey Horsburgh, it allowed Nikora to kick it again and he beat Weekes to the ball to score and it was 18-18 at the break.

The second half started with a bit of chaos, there was plenty of ball in play but no big moments in that period. That all changed in the 57th minute when Young hit Cam McInnes high with "direct contact and no mitigation". With those words, the referee had no alternative than to despatch him to the bin. Following an additional high tackle, Nicho Hynes added a penalty goal to give the Sharks a narrow two point lead. Again, the rest of the half brought little joy to either fan base as Canberra failed to bring the margin back while Cronulla didn't add to their two point margin.

In the final moments, Canberra attempted a magic trick. Young ran the ball on the last, before getting an offload away to Xavier Savage. After skipping across the field, Savage put boot to ball. The bounce was a nightmare for the Sharks, as Kaeo Weekes recovered it, before a magical flick pass sent Simi Sasagi into space. He got it away to Sebastian Kris and the Raiders' completed their trick to run away with victory after back to back away losses. Cronulla have now dropped two straight and concerns continue to linger around their ability to close out tight matches.